


the light of hidden flowers

by wedelia



Series: Good Omens fluff [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, Language of Flowers, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Canon, shoutout to Pablo Neruda's poem XVII
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 13:13:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20154172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wedelia/pseuds/wedelia
Summary: In which Crowley discovers that his love language is leaving flowers on Aziraphale’s doorstep and then running away.





	the light of hidden flowers

“Behave,” Crowley warns. He casts one last stern look at the vase of flowers standing on the doorstep of Aziraphale’s bookstore. It’s half-past three in the morning (because Crowley hadn’t wanted to risk coming by when Aziraphale might be near the windows to see him), and in the soft moonlight Crowley can make out the way the moss roses’ petals shiver, frightened, at the threat in his voice.

Good. They need to be perfect. Crowley has been waiting for thousands of years to do this, and he refuses to leave anything to chance.

He watches discreetly from a table outside a coffee shop down the street from Aziraphale’s when, hours later, the angel steps outside, hesitates a moment, and then brings the flowers in.

—

Crowley does the same thing again every night after that, leaving behind a new plant each time:

Chamomile. _ Energy in adversity. _ Crowley places a tin of a brand of tea he knows Aziraphale likes next to a pot of the plant it comes from. He wonders if Aziraphale knows how alive Crowley felt when they were fighting together to end the apocalypse, or how _ relieved _ Crowley was to know the angel was alive.

Daffodils. _ New beginnings. _ The start of an era of easy companionship without worrying about the judgment of heaven or hell.

Heliotrope. _ Devoted affection. _ That feeling Crowley gets when Aziraphale worries about leaving his umbrella at home even though he could just miracle one up, so Crowley offers to share his own.

Periwinkle. _ Tender recollections. _ Memories of mornings and afternoons and evenings shared with Aziraphale over their six thousand years together. The sense of having waited long enough.

Camellia. _ My destiny is in your hands. _ The way Crowley can’t envision a future without Aziraphale in it.

Crowley hopes that Aziraphale has kept a book about the meaning of flowers, because the demon’s starting to think that the Victorians—however emotionally repressed and boring they may have been—were onto something. It’s so much easier to send a message about how he feels when he doesn’t have to use words.

—

“The strangest thing has been happening to me,” Aziraphale confesses during their next dinner together, when they’re seated across from each other at their usual table at the Ritz. “Someone keeps leaving flowers on my doorstep.”

Crowley puts on a smirk. (If he were human he knows he would probably be blushing. Sometimes he thinks that it’s a good thing he’s not human.) “Why, angel, it sounds like you’ve got a secret admirer.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale blinks. It seems like the thought genuinely hadn’t occurred to him, and Crowley pushes down a wave of exasperated fondness. “But that’s ridiculous. Who would like me enough to send me flowers? I never let customers into the shop.”

_ Me, _ Crowley feels like shouting at him. _ It’s me, you darling idiot.  
_

“I feel like there’s been some kind of mix-up at the florist’s,” Aziraphale continues. He gets this small, endearing frown, like he’s concerned by the idea. He probably is. He’s nauseatingly good-natured. “I hope the flowers weren’t meant for someone else. They’re so lovely—”

_ —of course they were, otherwise they’d regret it— _

“—I would hate to think that they’re not going to the person they’re meant for. Whoever’s sending them seems to love that person very much.”

Crowley wants to tear his hair out. “Yes,” he says, somewhat short. “That’s usually the idea behind sending flowers.”

Aziraphale gets this dreamy look in his eyes. “But they’re not just any flowers, Crowley. When I say they’re lovely, I mean—they literally radiate love.”

Crowley begins to feel less frustrated and more generally uncomfortable. He’s also irrationally jealous of his own flowers, which makes no sense. “What do you mean?”

“You know how I can sense this kind of thing. There’s this aura of love around them,” Aziraphale says, earnest. “Like the person who brought them felt so strongly that the feeling lingered for days.”

Crowley takes a sip of his wine. “Hmm."

—

The next time he does it, a few hours after that dinner, things go differently. Crowley doesn’t leave the flowers behind. Instead, he knocks on the door and waits—without bated breath, thanks very much, he’s a _ demon_, he is perfectly in control of his bodily functions—for Aziraphale to open it.

When Aziraphale does open the door, the smile that grows on his face is soft and pleased and intimate, the kind of private smile that belongs here in the dim light while the sounds of the city are relatively quiet around them and no one is nearby to see it but Crowley. Aziraphale’s gaze drops to the tulips in Crowley’s hands, and his eyes when he lifts them back up to meet Crowley’s are lit up with a kind of shy wonder. “Oh.”

Crowley feels itchy. Half of him wants to crawl out of his skin and the other half wants to toss the flowers so his hands will be free to pull Aziraphale in by his shirt and kiss him and keep kissing him until he opens up for Crowley, sweet and beautiful, like a blossom in springtime.

_ That’s inappropriate_, Crowley reminds himself, not for the first time. _ He’s an angel. There are boundaries. _

Fortunately for him, Aziraphale has never been an ordinary angel. 

“These are for you,” Crowley says, holding out the flowers with one hand and averting his eyes so that he won’t have to see the moment when Aziraphale’s expression changes into one of realization and pity—

—and then he makes a startled, choked noise when Aziraphale flings himself at him, wrapping Crowley into a hug and knocking the tulips out of his grip. The angel’s arms are tight around Crowley’s shoulders, and in the next moment he pulls back just enough to say, “Honestly, Crowley, you have _ no idea _how long I’ve been waiting for you—”

_ — _

Later that night—or later that morning, if he’s being technical about it—it will occur to him that if they were human, they would need to go to sleep at some point. 

Sometimes Crowley thinks that it’s a very good thing that he’s not human. 

He snaps out of his thoughts when Aziraphale shifts next to him, turning over so they’re facing each other, and murmurs, “You know, since you gave me flowers, it’s only fair that I give you something in return.”

Crowley tightens his arm around Aziraphale and says, “I already have everything I want.”

Aziraphale smiles at him like he’s just done something very charming. Crowley’s still somewhat confused at having a smile like that directed at him. It’s a good confusion, though. He wouldn’t mind getting used to it. 

There’s also a kind of enthusiastic glint in Aziraphale’s eyes that Crowley recognizes from when he talks about books, and the angel huffs a laugh before saying, “Okay, this might be for me, too. I’ve always wanted to have someone to recite poetry to.”

And Crowley’s breath absolutely doesn’t catch at that. Not at all. “Go on, then,” he says. 

Aziraphale’s eyes are blown dark. He leans in, says, “I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off…” His fingers trail up Crowley’s chest, and he presses a chaste kiss against Crowley’s shoulder before going on. “I love you as certain dark things are to be loved—”

Yes, Crowley thinks, it’s a very good thing that he’s not human. Otherwise he surely would have died by now. Heart failure, maybe.


End file.
